Show Notes
Twenty-one years after their first recorded interview on the first Survivors DVDs back in 2003, Andy catches up with Carolyn Seymour who played Abby Grant in Survivors.
Carolyn reflects on her relationships with the key figures who made the show: Terry Nation, Terry Dudley and original director Pennant Roberts; how she and other women actors suffered at the hands of chauvinism in the 70s; and reveals how she got through the tough winter location filming.
She also responds to the criticism that Survivors was too white and middle-class (she heartily agrees), explains where the series sits in her wider career, and how it was never far from her mind during the COVID pandemic.
More from An A to Z of UK Television Drama
[Spoiler alert! This series is almost 50 years old but we will be revealing - around 90 minutes - in who spectacularly dies in the literal cliffhanger to episode 7. You have been warned!]
After a brief hiatus, Andy and Martin resume the second season of A to Z with the letter V. Admittedly cheating a little, their choice was 'Vote, Vote, Vote for Nigel Barton', the second of two autobiographical Dennis Potter plays from 1965 in The Wednesday Play strand. They also cover the first play, 'Stand Up, Nigel Barton'. Both feature Keith Barron as the title character who we follow from childhood, to university, to a reluctant attempt to stand as a Labour candidate in the General Election.
Andy and Martin travel back in time to the summer of 1965 and the adventures of HR consultant Drew Heriot and his sister-in-law Anne as they face up to the machinations of 'Undermind’: aliens who have brainwashed British citizens in order to cause national unrest ahead of their imminent invasion. Their various schemes include: spreading pirate radio misinformation; inciting youth violence in a seaside resort; influencing the works of a popular children’s author; the distribution of suicide-inducing birthday records; interference with the printing of exam papers, and most abominably of all, the assassination of Eamonn Andrews! Yes, really.
This month Andy and Martin review the highly regarded 1987 BAFTA-winning Scottish drama Tutti Frutti, written by John Byrne and starring Robbie Coltrane and Emma Thompson.
This month Andy and Martin review the classic post-apocalypse drama Survivors created by Terry Nation. Specifically they review three episodes, one from each series: Law and Order, Over the Hills, and Law of the Jungle.